Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Analysis for a Gameplay-Based Lore Framework

This segment was taken from another entry due to the length of that entry. Here, you will find the analysis that leads to the lore framework discussed in that original entry.

League of Legends is Gameplay-Based

Like Monopoly, the most
important thing in League of Legends is a gameplay that is meant to be
adopted by a mass market (and equal to or greater than that which played
DotA). Lore is secondary to gameplay, so we can consider League of
Legends to be a gameplay-based game.

Let's put on our
game/user experience designer hats to understand the gameplay elements
that will form the lore framework -- just like we did at a high level
with the gameplay-based Monopoly lore framework.

- A user selects the champion they will control in the match.
- The 4 teammates and 5 enemy summoners select their own champions for the match.
- The match begins with all the users' selected champions at a spawn location.
- The spawn location provides a source of modifiers for champion stats or abilities.
-
The spawn location provides restoration of a champion so they may
maximize the time until which they are next forced back by the enemy.
- A set of minions stream out at regular intervals from the victory condition node to the enemy's victory condition node.
- Enemy users, obstacles, and enemy minions prevent minions from reaching the victory condition node.
- A team wins when their users overcome the obstacles and enemy users such that the enemy's victory condition node is reached.

Laying out the Static Elements of League of Legends

Now let's put
on our creative director hats (we're creative directors that happen to
understand game, UX, and technical design because we attended many GDC
parties, okay?). If you look at the above, it sounds very dry and
mechanical -- which it should, because those awesome game designers know
how to break down games to their bare mechanics.

It's
your job to find the resultant lore framework elements and give those
mechanics life and purpose. Here's where the game stands with the
description/chat from your designer -- as well as from playing the game
yourself.

Minions = Minions

Spawn Location = "Fountain"

Victory Condition Node = "Nexus"

Source of Modifiers = "Item Shop"

Modifiers = "Items"

Obstacles = "Towers"

Most of the time,
it's the same things
every time.

You also understand that the macrocosmic unit of experience for a user is a "match".

The above are static because
they are the same across all matches. You might be thinking of a few
other static elements, such as "the jungle" or champion death. They
were left out for brevity and because they are also unchanging across
matches; more static stuff you can trust the excited writers on your
team to tackle.

There are some remaining terms, though...

Users = Summoners

Champions = Characters released over time

These are dynamic
across matches and real time, with champions being limited in the sense
that they are always the same from a selection made by the user from a
pool of champions available at that time.

These could be the opportunities for large-scale immersion beyond the scope of a single match experience.